New Year's
So, before I get to all the traditional new year's reflecty stuff...
LAST NIGHT'S SHOW WAS SO COOL. Edge Audio did our biggest gig yet last night. It was a huge party downtown at the sherman center (which happens to be the most obnoxious load-in I've ever seen). So we hauled 8 labs and 8 tops along with 22 intels and all the fittings, wirings and controllings of such, along with a stage through an alley, through a kitchen, around a u-turn, through a ballroom, 2 hallways, and a grand foyer before we even got to the elevators. That is a lot of shit to move. But luckily it paid off. The hole basis of the New Years Nation parties is that there are parties in 8 large cities across the country and footage of all of them is being streamed to our screens. Well, Denver had 2/3 of the screentime and many people told us that we had the best lights of all of them. Even luckier is that since the party was all professionals in their 20's and 30's and that the guy working on streaming the video has a huge production company, so we'll be getting many more gigs, yay! But unfortunately 19 hours of such hard, labor intensive work totally undid whatever healing took place since I dropped that fucking table on my foot and it's now actually worse than when I first hurt it, so I'll probably have to go into the doctor's tomorrow and find out if it's actually broken. So that was miserable timing. I feel weak and pathetic enough trying to move stage pieces and speakers heavier than me when I'm the smallest and lightest of anyone else at the company, and the fact that satan chose to take over my foot yesterday made me totally pathetic. But I pushed through the whole load-out, which was probably pretty stupid, but I felt as if I had to. When we only had 9 people working on moving such massive amounts of equipment and it's already 5:30 am, I couldn't have just given up. And I was okay until I got home which was essentially when my foot decided it didn't want me walking much at all. And that's how it's been. I hate being hurt, I feel pathetic and want to just go on with work as usual. I hate the attention being hurt brings. I don't need it, don't want it, but we'll see how it goes. I have theatre tomorrow and I can hardly walk. Brilliant.
And now, moving on the usual new year's entry.
So it's 2008. Finally. I have been saying that I'm the class ov '08 since the third grade and finally it's here. Truthfully midnight passed uneventfully. I took the few hours I had off during the actual party (being underage is terribly inconvenient) and went home to sleep. But I don't really care, I have no enthusiasm for the new year's tradition of getting drunk with a bunch of weird strangers. Shannon's in Austria, I had nothing much to do.
But overall, this year kicked ass. Theatre-wise, I grew incredibly. I pulled off the paris painting for Hearts, went back to construction for the first time since I was 13 and managed to crew chief it pretty well. And then I got the job at Curious, yay! Got the job at Edge, got paid from the very get go, which is nice considering all the free stuff I do. And eventually I got to do my first professional show at curious with some spectacular designers. The fall show went incredibly easy and I started to realize that a show is a show to me. The appeal of the high school fanatasism and giggliness over a single night of a show has diminished for me. It's odd because at school theatre, I'm the one everyone comes to with questions assuming that I know a solution for most things. And then I go to edge and I'm back at the bottom of the food chain. Not only can I not lift or carry the large, obnoxious things everyone else can, but I know next to nothing. I know I'm still miserable when it comes to really electronic stuff, I can deal with dmx addressing but when you give me a table full of computer equipment and tell me to program intel lights, send it to three different dmx lines and to integrate it with audio coming from three different locations and I'm entirely clueless. Truthfully, I hate the really technical things, they just frustrate me. But I want to learn.
Otherwise, the year was even better. Had a good boyfriend and however weird we were, it was fun and I loved hanging out with his friends. Survived my first AP tests, made a better than 4.0 for the first time. Got my license finally and actually enjoyed my summer regardless of the lack of exciting trips. I finally fixed something I had been struggling with for years and I definitely found out who I could trust. Spent amazing times this summer with les and shannon, dramatic though they may have been sometimes. Spent most of my summer in my car playing music too loudly and enjoying the hell out of it. Hated to go back to school, but time has gone fast. I learned that I've gotten better at not sleeping. Last year I was totally freaked out with 2 shows in a month. This year I survived having constant shows every weekend from september through most of november along with schoolwork, college applications, portfolio work, and about a million and a half other things without the complete frantic feeling of 1984. And here it is January 1, I have two lovely best friends, friends in the theatre for the first time, I've been accepted to my top school for half tuition, I have the confidence to be myself against all the people I don't need, a car, and the promise of being done with high school forever in 5 months. 5 months and I'm out into the real world. Then I'm going to Maine to start my summer. In all likelihood, I'll be heading to Boston for school and then who knows what comes next. All I know is that I'm excited at the prospect of finally being done with all the school I hate and being able to move out into the world so soon. I'm not afraid, I'm ready to face this head-on. I have my friends, I am confident in what I've chosen to do for a living and I can't wait for this year. It'll be the best yet.